Reckless Road Guns 'n Roses and the Making of Appetite for Destruction Read online

  TOM ZUTAUT Then I introduced the band to Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons from KISS, because we were thinking about working with them, but one of them told the band that they'd have to rearrange "Welcome to the Jungle," and the band was like "fuck that guy." The band walked out and that was the end of it. They would say, "no one is going to rearrange 'Welcome to the Jungle.' We've played it for our fans, and we're not going to change anything." And that stood true, even when the record finally came out and there were people at the label that wanted to edit the song. The band would always have creative control and would not change the song. And, you know, they were right, because it's a classic. With the band having a hundred percent creative control, there were a lot of issues with producers saying, "I can't to do my job." At the same time, I was desperately trying to find the band a manager and everyone was turning them down because they had this reputation of making trouble.

  SLASH Alan Niven was the first guy that could deal with us at face value as we presented ourselves. Without getting squeamish or bullshitting us, he could deal with Izzy and I being strung out. He could deal with Steven being Steven. Duff was always on the even-keel and then there were Axl's idiosyncrasies. Axl already had a major rock star persona and was a little bit unpredictable and Alan handled all of that with a shrug of the shoulders. It was no big deal to him. So we felt comfortable and at ease with him, not feeling like we had to impress him or try and bullshit him into thinking we were something we were not. So that worked great. And he had good ideas and we looked at where he was coming from and how it related to the band and how it all worked. All things considered, he was just the right guy at the right time. He understood the sensationalism of the whole thing. In other words, he knew that a band like this; a reckless sort of live-by-the-moment hardcore rock n' roll band, was actually entertaining and he knew how to market that. He came from a Sex Pistols background. I think the only time we ever changed the arrangement of anything was "Welcome to the Jungle," because of Alan. There's a breakdown section in the song that we did twice instead of once, and Alan said, "Well, what if you just take that section out, it would cut like a minute of the song," and we thought, "No. We don't want to." Eventually we ended up trying it and that was that. That was the only arrangement change that we ever made.

  MARC CANTER Alan Niven was the boss. He ran things like a CEO; he knew how to get things done. He took the band under his wing and fought hard for them.

  RON SCHNEIDER Alan was like the Peter Grant of our generation; he was large and in charge.

  TOM ZUTAUT One day, I realized that I was going to have to find an engineer and produce the record myself. That was going to be the only way the band would get what they wanted without stepping on someone's ego. I started going through the list of people who I thought were great engineers who I thought could capture lighting in a bottle for Guns N' Roses. And a couple of the names that came up were Bill Price, because of his great engineering from Roxy Music to the Sex Pistols, and Mike Clink. Mike Clink had engineered some of the great UFO records. Axl, Slash and I had a conversation about how great these UFO records were, especially the live record, "Strangers in the Night." I contacted Mike Clink, talked to him and then I introduced him to the band. Mike was looking to step out of an engineering role and move into more of a production role. He subscribed to the theory of the band having creative control. The band would basically be co-producing and I would be heavily involved as an A&R person riding shotgun over the whole thing.

  MIKE CLINK I got a call from my manager Teri Lipman that I had a meeting set up at Geffen Records. I went to Tom Zutaut's office. Tom, Alan Niven, and Axl were there and they played some records that I worked on. They said, "We like this record, we don't like that record." The records that they liked the most that I had worked on were the UFO records, especially "Strangers In The Night." That's the record they really loved. They also played me some failed attempts at some previous recordings that the band had made that no one was happy with. The recordings weren't right and they didn't represent the angst and the energy that the band had. It was a little too processed, which was the sound in that day. People tended to make things very processed sounding, very slick, and they were looking for something a little more raw. So they were looking for someone to come in, fix it, facilitate it and capture the Guns N' Roses sound.

  SLASH Luckily, Tom found Mike Clink and there was a perfect chemistry there. Whatever producer we ended up working with, there had to be mutual respect. The way that things sounded reflected how the producer gelled with the band. If it didn't sound right, then we probably didn't really like the person as a result. And if it sounded great, then that would give us an idea as to the character of the person. When we first met Mike, we really liked his energy. We liked hanging out with him. He was very low key and quite. He is simple guy without a lot of airs. He was amiable and didn't try to act a certain way to hang out with us. He just seemed very in control. We were eager to go in and do the demo of "Shadow of Your Love" and when we got it and it sounded great, we struck up a great relationship that was very well-rounded from that point on. Although Mike was labeled as a producer of the band, what he really did was capture the band live and be able to put it on tape properly. We tried a number of different producers who just didn't know how do that.

  MIKE CLINK What they wanted me to do was go in the studio with them and record one song and see how it turned out. So we went in the studio and I recorded "Shadow Your Love." During the process it was a matter of getting the band to trust me and understand that I had their best interests at heart.

  TOM ZUTAUT Mike is probably on a scale of nice people who you meet in life who are really talented at what they do; he's a ten. You know you just meet him and he makes you smile. You needed someone with the patience of Job to be in a session with these guys and Mike is one of the nicest, most patient guys you'll ever meet.

  STEVEN ADLER It took a while, but we lucked out with Mike Clink.

  MIKE CLINK After I had finished doing a mix of the song and had given it to everybody, my phone rings at about four o'clock in the morning. It was Axl. He said, "This is great. I love it. Let's start tomorrow."

  ORIGINS OF MR. BROWNSTONE

  DESI CRAFT One time, Slash came to our place on Orchid with a lump of Mexican tar heroin and he wanted to cook it all up. Izzy and I told him to just do a little bit because there was this death tar going around. He said it was okay and shot up. Well, he pretty much went rigor mortis in the chair and we got him on the floor. I gave him mouth-to-mouth and I remember him going "Is this death or is this an angel I'm seeing," because he was so out of it. Right after that, we wrote "Mr. Brownstone" and I wrote that with them. I was really upset that I never got credit for that. But why dwell on the past. That's how that song came about.

  AXL (reprinted from a Geffen press release) When we moved out of our place on Fountain and La Cienega, I was the last one to leave, and found this piece of yellow paper wadded up in the corner where Izzy's and Steven's room was. It had the lyrics to "Mr. Brownstone" on it. I read it and went, "This is great." They said they had music for it and we ended up starting to rehearse this thing.

  SLASH (reprinted from a Geffen press release) A lot of people have a misconception about this song. They think it's about drugs. It's not so much a statement about our drug habits; it's more a statement about other people's drug habits. It's a good little ditty that people can listen to and maybe think about what they're doing and try and get themselves into perspective. I know one thing, a lot of people who are doing a lot of fucking drugs all the time don't have any kind of focus. A band can keep you together. Like we can all go through all kinds of shit, but the band keeps us together. But if you don't have a band, don't have a job, don't have anything you're trying to do, then somehow drugs can take over.

  IZZY (reprinted from a Geffen press release) It can mean a million different things to a million different people. It's like when you listen to a Zeppelin song, what do you think? I have all kinds of f
ucking wild ideas about what "Custard Pie" is about.

  Act III

  Chapter 10b: Origins of Sweet Child O' Mine

  AXL (reprinted from a Geffen press release) "Sweet Child O' Mine" is a true song about my girlfriend at this time.

  IZZY (reprinted from a Geffen press release) That's a real love song.

  AXL (reprinted from a Geffen press release) I had written this poem; reached a dead-end with it and put it on the shelf. Then Slash and Izzy got working together on songs and I came in. Izzy hit a rhythm, and all of sudden this poem popped into my head. It just all came together. A lot of rock bands are too fucking wimpy to have any sentiment or any emotion in any of their stuff unless they're in pain. It's the first positive love song I've ever written. I never had anyone to write anything that positive about.

  DUFF (reprinted from a Geffen press release) It was probably the hardest song for me and Steve to record, just because you have to keep a steadiness and also keep the emotion in it.

  MARC CANTER Slash and Izzy had been in San Francisco for a gig with Jetboy and they were delayed in getting back to L.A. as they were obtaining some necessary personal supplies. When they got to town they headed right for the Santa Monica Civic and immediately hit the stage.

  Because my name had been left off the guest list, I almost didn't make it into the show and had to sneak in with Slash and Izzy. I wasn't able to get all my equipment in, so I couldn't videotape the show. I did manage to bring my camera to take still photos.

  SLASH We came back from a trip to San Francisco, got back to our apartment and we couldn't get any dope. Danny Biral stole all my smack, but he didn't tell us and so we searched the house. We tore it to pieces looking for it, then we got really sick and our dealer wouldn't call us back. We were freaking out. So, we're getting sicker and sicker and finally one of Desi's girlfriends found some smack. She drove us down to Izzy's old apartment where this girl was staying, and we waited around until the smack showed up. We do it really quick, jump in this car and fly across town. We get to the gig and my zipper broke as we were jumping over the fence to get into the auditorium. We got there five seconds before we were supposed to walk on. Not making it would have been the worst thing because it was the biggest gig we ever did. That was a scary moment.

  MARC CANTER The record label folks who came to the show got a pleasant surprise that night: the band completely won over the crowd which had come to see Ted Nugent, and may not have even heard of Gun N' Roses. The Geffen people had thought they had signed a band with great potential as a recording act and they were happily astonished to find they actually had a powerfully commanding arena-ready act on their hands. In Axl, they saw a front person who could electrify, not just a club-size audience, but a stadium-size crowd. Axl recalled that Ted Nugent tried to have the sound turned down on them because they were rocking so hard and had the crowd eating out of their hands.

  Album cover for Live Like a Suicide.

  Act III

  Chapter 11: Appetite for Destruction

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  We Rolled When They Were Ready to Roll (2:04).

  With Tom Zutaut's backing and Mike Clink as producer, Guns N' Roses went into Rumbo Recorders in Van Nuys, California to record "Appetite for Destruction." The goal was to record an album with a sound and feel that reproduced the raw and energetic qualities of their live shows. They wanted nothing to do with the trend in rock and pop music at the time; using synthetic elements ad nasueum and compensating for poor songwriting with over-produced orchestration.

  Mike's style suited the band. He had an easy going personality that disarmed the band when it came to creative collaboration, but he also played the disciplinarian; demanding that the band show up for their scheduled recording sessions on time. The band responded well to both; their days were long and productive.

  But the hooligans of Hollywood didn't allow the marathon days with Mike affect their nights out. Guns N' Roses carried on the usual debauchery and Mike became accustomed to the variety of explanations for broken bones, missing equipment and run-ins with the cops.

  Just because the band had achieved the status of Geffen artists and were recording their first album didn't change their state of affairs on the street. They were still living hand-to-mouth, bumming off of friends for food and a place to sleep. Izzy was kicked out of his girlfriend's apartment and slept in the utility closet at Rumbo studios when Mike allowed him. Slash had nowhere to live and also set up camp in the studio.

  Overall, the environment was highly collaborative and full of energy. Mike Clink and the band delivered the goods.

  Once the track recordings were complete, Tom engaged the mixing services of Mike Barbiero and Steve Thompson in New York City who were producing another Geffen artist Tesla. Slash, Axl and Izzy flew to New York and mixed the album to perfection with their new team. Among the small entourage from Los Angeles that followed the three Guns to New York was Adriana Durgan, Steven Adler's girlfriend and a Sunset Boulevard stripper. Axl propositioned her to record some last-minute "environmental" sounds for "Rocket Queen" and she reluctantly agreed, but not without a guilty conscience.

  At the end of the mix, everyone involved knew they had gold, even though no one predicted the success that would follow. "Appetite for Destruction" was ready to launch and it was up to Tom Zutaut to get airplay, sell millions of records and create the next chapter of rock n' roll history. What he didn't know was that no one in mainstream radio would touch the band.

  TOM ZUTAUT It wasn't until I heard "Sweet Child O' Mine" that I believed they finally were ready because now they had a record. They had all these great raw, punky, thrasher songs from their early days, but now they also had "Welcome to the Jungle" and they had "Sweet Child O' Mine" and they had a bunch of other songs to flush out what became "Appetite for Destruction."

  MIKE CLINK In that initial meeting in Tom Zutaut's office, they showed me some of the pop records that I worked on that they didn't like. But I was pulling from some of those experiences and bringing it to Guns N' Roses, not blatantly, but just to help tailor the sound for what they were doing. When you hire a producer, what you're doing is you're hiring them for all the experience they've had working on different records. So I was taking all of those experiences and brining it together with the blueprint being the Aerosmith records. I fashioned the sound of Guns N' Roses, with that two-guitar sound playing off of each other in a sexy, slinky and powerful way. The Aerosmith correlation was just a blueprint of where I was going, and I pulled elements from a lot of records I had worked on previously.

  ROBERT JOHN What's interesting about them going into the studio to record "Appetite" is that I didn't really notice a change in the band. It was almost like everything was just a natural process for these guys. When they went in there, it was just so natural. They'd go in, start recording and I didn't see anybody hyped up about it. Other bands would get hyped up and pumped up, like, "Yeah, we get to record." I didn't see that with these guys. They said, "Okay, we have to do this." They lived for their music.

  TOM ZUTAUT Guns N' Roses might have worked consistently for one week, and the next week they didn't turn up. It was pretty erratic, probably because of the drug use and stuff. When Axl was in the frame of mind to work, he might work for two or three days straight and then not turn up for a week or he might come everyday during an eight-hour period. I can't even imagine this scenario happening as corporate as music companies have become today. We thought it was corporate back then. It was hard enough to get people into the concept of, "Here is a band and they're real and you roll tape when they're in the mood, alright."

  MIKE CLINK So many people come to me and say, "Those guys knocked it out in one take, didn't they?" No, they didn't. If that were the case, we probably would have been done with the record in two weeks. It didn't happen that way. When Slash played his parts, none of the other guys were there. T
hey wanted to be partying when they didn't have to be there. I always said one of the hardest things about recording that record was getting five people in the same room doing the same thing at the same time. That was not an easy chore because everyone was off doing their things.

  SLASH We did the whole album by getting it on the second or third take. That's where the spontaneity comes from. If you don't get it by then you've lost the feel of it.

  TOM ZUTAUT I found myself saying to a potential engineer, "I don't know if this is going to be a nine-to-five kind of a job, or a six-to-midnight kind of a job. When the band is in the mood to roll tape, I've got to call you and we've got to roll tape." This presented problems even with Warner Brothers, because again you know they're very corporate. They would tell me, "I have to issue a purchase order and it has to go through this approval procedure." I had to get David Geffen to call Warner Brothers and give me a book of P. O.'s, so I could issue my own at two o' clock in the morning. So that's another reason why that record was good, because there wasn't necessarily a regular schedule. It rolled when the band was in the space to roll. Mike Clink was perfect for GNR because he could sit in that studio and sit out all shenanigans. And honestly there were a lot of them.